One question … in two variants
- How do you “frighten off” a suicide attacker?
- How do you “punish” a suicide attacker?
Look at this (partial) table of recent mass shootings (with a few suicide bombings thrown in):
Date |
Perpetrator |
Place |
killed |
injured |
weapon |
7-JUL-16 |
Micah Johnson |
Dallas |
5 |
9 |
SKS Assault Rifle |
12-Jun-16 |
Omar Mateen |
Orlando |
49 |
53 |
Sig Sauer MCX |
2-Dec-15 |
Syed Farook & Tashfeen Malik |
San Bernadino |
14 |
22 |
AR-15 |
27-Nov-15 |
Robert Lewis Dear |
Col Springs |
3 |
9 |
SKS Assault Rifle |
13-Nov-15 |
Multiple |
Paris |
130 |
368 |
AK47 & bombs |
1-Oct-15 |
Christopher Mercer |
Roseburg, OR |
1 |
8 |
AR-15 |
16-Jul-15 |
Muhammad Abdulazeez |
Chattanooga |
5 |
2 |
AK47 |
17-Jun-15 |
Dylan Roof |
Charleston |
9 |
|
Semi-auto pistol |
9-Jan-15 |
Amedy Coulibaly |
Paris |
4 |
|
AK47 |
7-Jan-15 |
Multiple |
Charlie Hebdo |
11 |
11 |
AK47 |
7-Jun-13 |
John Zawahri |
Santa Monica |
5 |
4 |
AR-15 |
14-Dec-12 |
Adam Lanza |
Sandy Hook NY |
27 |
|
AR-15 |
20-Jul-12 |
James Holmes |
Aurora, CO |
12 |
70 |
AR-15 |
What carnage! I didn’t include attacks in Turkey, Bangladesh, and so many other places that aren’t well covered by our news. If you want a fuller list, look here and here.
What are the common threads in those attacks?
- (Mostly) young, deeply alienated males who are willing to die or are indifferent to survival.
- Evidence that their alienation long preceded their violent outbursts … a history of crime, abuse, bullying, violence, mental illness, and/or deep personal estrangement.
- Powerfully lethal weapons … high rate of fire guns and/or bombs
What things are different?
- Their “causes”. The same personal histories and behavior fueled actions under widely differing justifications. Are those causes the real motivations, or are they just pretexts to validate acting out pre-existing rage and despair? Often, we can never really be sure.
Think about it … with these threats … and these backgrounds, our conventional legal systems and sanctions are useless. We can’t threaten them with “jail” or “justice.” Our military can’t threaten “retaliation.” Warning them of impending death? Really? That is because our normal social controls are all reactive … and reactions will always come too late.
So how do we stop them?
If reaction is futile, we must find ways to prevent them. We need to find the forces that spawn and enable them, then interdict or at least weaken those forces. I like the analogy to starting and sustaining a fire:
Ingredients of a Fire |
Ingredients OF a senseless attack |
Typical sources |
Fuel |
An individual’s inner rage |
Bullying, Abuse, Mental illness, etc. |
Oxygen |
Toxic rhetoric for a “cause” that validates and sustains the rage over enough time that it can lead to action |
Internet, hate speech, radical movements |
ignition source |
A specific event or excuse with enough “heat” to ignite them to action
|
A public outrage
|
Chain reaction
|
A mechanism to sustain the attack once it starts
|
Lethal weaponry
|
A naive solution is to try to eliminate an entire class of ingredient. Say, remove all guns or suppress all hateful speech. That is what a fire marshal might recommend for a building, but we know that won’t likely work in a society writ large. Sorry, no magic bullets.
The better (and IMO only) approach is to try to weaken all four factors incrementally, simultaneously, and relentlessly. We won’t completely eliminate any of them, but we can reduce each by at least a bit. Then, when they do come together, maybe they won’t add up to quite enough to set off the explosion. … at least not today … not this time.
I’m not an expert on diffusing volatile individuals or situations. I am sure that other Kossacks can improve on this table. But this is where my thoughts lead me.
INGREDIENTS OF A FIRE |
Counter Actions |
FUEL |
- Listen more at the individual level. Listen more deeply, with less judgment and less anger. Let them “say” their piece. Validate what is real. Try to defuse what is imaginary. Do it the next time you are in a bar ... in the office … in school. Not all the time. Not everywhere. But sometimes when you can and when you have the emotional energy to follow through.
- Fight bullying, abuse and isolation when you see it. Not all the time. Not everywhere. But at least some times and in some situations. When you can.
- Look for people who are in trouble. Their behaviors often make them stand out. Give a heads up to someone … authorities, friends, family … anyone who might be able to intervene.
|
OXYGEN |
- Tone down the over-the-top rhetoric. FWIW, I believe that Donald Trump is a truly awful candidate for President … on every conceivable level. Doesn’t that say enough? Do we need to go on to demonize and dehumanize him? I’ve done it and, while I don’t feel sorry for or worry about Trump’s feelings … demonizing him implicitly demonizes his supporters … and a few of them might be vulnerable.
- Develop thicker skin to criticism. Take a page from “no drama” Obama. React more slowly. Set an example of “taking a deep breath”
- Speak, write, explain … reasonably … patiently … repetitively
- Protest … peacefully and, wherever possible, creatively … build strong counter-models of response to offense or injustice … channel Dr. King
|
IGNITION SOURCE |
- We usually know when these dangerous moments are upon us. Take heed and be especially vigilant. Apply the other interventions more diligently and with greater intensity.
|
SUSTAINABLE REACTION |
- Fight for at least incremental limits on gun lethality. What civilian needs a 50 caliber? Gimme a break.
- Limit large-capacity magazines. It won’t stop the incidents, but it may reduce the body count.
- Fight the insane leniency around open carry. It just makes it easier to mask the attacker’s intentions. Which legal bearer of an AR-15 is there to protect or there to kill? How can anyone know?
|
The key idea behind this approach is to subtly, but steadily make the individual’s process of planning and executing an attack more tedious and more difficult. Make everything about sustaining the motivation and completing the logistics just a little bit harder. Make it a bit harder to sustain the full intensity of the rage over an extended planning period. Make it a bit harder to find a suitable cause or accomplice. Make it a bit harder to find the right weaponry. Make it a bit harder to find rage in others that validates their own rage. Make it slightly harder to achieve the full detachment and estrangement that lets them dispatch fellow humans without conscience.
In short, try to wear them down before they explode.
Will these measures work? No. Sometimes they still won’t be enough. But they will save lives.
How long must we do this? Forever. The raw ingredients of violence will always be with us.
Who must do it? Everyone. Not all the time. Not with everyone. But as often as you can. As often as we all can together. If we all pitch in and do our little bit, I am convinced that more people will live.
… at least for another day.
Just my $0.00002